News & Stories
In other news: May 2024
Thought leaders
- Professor Kristopher Keller’s study “A War on Sugar? Effects of Reduced Sugar Content and Package Size in the Soda Category” won the 2024 AMA-EBSCO-RRBM Award for Responsible Research in Marketing. The award recognizes outstanding research that can benefit society. Co-authored with Amsterdam Business School Professor Jonne Guyt, the study explores how marketing can both address sales objectives for a brand while focusing on society’s push for healthier products. The study was published in the Journal of Marketing in 2023.
- Professor Eric Maribojoc, associate director of the UNC Wood Center for Real Estate Studies’ Housing Affordability Initiative, shed light on how the National Association of Realtors settlement could impact the real estate industry and bring changes for buyers and sellers.
- Professor Arzu Ozoguz explored how increases in global government regulations sow uncertainty within businesses on the way to compliance as part of the Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise’s series on business resilience.
- Research from Professor Rajdeep Grewal and Khimendra Singh (PhD ’21), a professor at the University of Missouri, looked into the various factors behind product recalls, including the role politics plays in recall decisions. Their study appears in the Journal of Marketing Research.
- In a webinar for Attuned, Professor Shimul Melwani, Undergraduate Business Program associate dean, talked about the ever-shifting atmosphere of the workplace, including topics that are still taboo and topics like mental health, gender identity and more that are now subjects of standard workforce training for numerous organizations.
Visionary
Professor Courtney Knoll (PhD ’05), MAC associate dean and executive director of the UNC Tax Center, was elected board chair of the North Carolina Association of CPAs (NCACPA).
“With extensive experience in the classroom and in CPA firm leadership roles, [Knoll] brings a wealth of knowledge and passion for advancing the accounting profession,” the NCACPA shared in a statement. “Having an experienced accounting educator as chair provides a unique perspective as the Association leads efforts to address the accounting pipeline shortage.”
Read more about Knoll’s career and her vision for the NCACPA here.
Standout students and alumni
- Lexi Donarski (MBA ’25), a guard on the UNC women’s basketball team, is one of 76 student-athletes from across the U.S. named to the All-Atlantic Coast Conference Academic Women’s Basketball Team. Her teammate Reinya Kelly, a rising sophomore, also made the list recognizing academic and athletic success. Donarski announced on social media that she’ll be back on the team for her fifth and final season of college eligibility.
- Will Nichols (BSBA ’24) reflected on his EcoStudio internship centered on sustainable textiles with the Ackerman Center for Excellence in Sustainability (ACES). EcoStudio matches Carolina undergraduates with environmentally focused internships at local and national organizations.
- Stephan Toutain (MBA ’97) was appointed COO of the PDS Biotechnology Corporation, which develops late-stage immunotherapy treatments and infectious disease vaccines. He previously served as COO of Anavex Life Sciences.
- Lauren Schultes (BSBA ’11) didn’t have to choose between her love of business and music while at Carolina. A member of the first class of Kenan Music Scholars, Schultes shared how her business degree and musical training both have been invaluable. She has been the region manager of Ahold Delhaize at Bush Brothers & Company since 2019.
- A diagnosis of Hodgkin’s lymphoma isn’t preventing James Blizzard (BSBA ’25) from his dream of career in business, running the Boston marathon, raising money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and managing the UNC men’s basketball team.
- As the founder and CEO of Orbital Arc, Jonathan Huffman (MBA ’17) has set a goal of developing a new ion thruster propulsion technology that could make space travel more efficient and cheap — with sights on roundtrip flights to Mars.
- Genevieve Flatgard (MBA ’16), a U.S. Navy lieutenant commander, was named the 2024 Military Engineer of the Year by Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command. She is the director of the facilities engineering and acquisition division in the Navy’s public works department.
- Wade Stevenson (MBA ’05) was named chief marketing and sales officer of medical diagnostics company deepull. He previously spent 18 years in various roles at BioFire Diagnostics, including vice president of North America clinical marketing.
- In 2020, Alex Brandwein (MBA ’20) capitalized on what he saw as an untapped market in Chapel Hill for authentic, New York-style bagels. Four years later, Brandwein’s Bagels is still going strong.
- For the second year in a row, Castle Biosciences CFO Frank Stokes (MBA ’95) was named one of the top 25 CFOs in Houston by TOP CFOs.
Bhuvan Meruga (left) and Andres Valdiri are co-founders of First Frontier Ventures.
- Bhuvan Meruga and Andres Valdiri (both BSBA ’27) are moving venture capital toward a younger perspective. The two rising sophomores met during orientation, and upon arrival at UNC-Chapel Hill joined the UNC Portfolio Management Team. Their firm, First Frontier Ventures, acts as a middleman between startups and venture capital firms. “The next six months are going to be incredible to watch this project grow, and we’re really looking forward to it,” Meruga said.
Two-time hero
“It’s part of being a good citizen and looking out for our neighbors, and that’s what we do,” said Abhi Mehrotra (MBA ’15) about helping a neighbor in Durham escape from a devastating house fire. Later that day at UNC Hospitals, the professor of emergency medicine treated an injured firefighter who had battled the same blaze.
Spotted on social
- Tojin Thomas Eapen and Daniel Finkenstadt (PhD ’20) celebrated the release of their new book “Bioinspired Strategic Design,” which outlines how non-human organisms thriving in harsh environments can inspire people in complex organizations to navigate hostility and focus on sustainable innovations. “After nearly four years of work with my good friend Tojin Thomas Eapen, our book is finally ready to go,” Finkenstadt shared on LinkedIn. Finkenstadt, who has served in the U.S. Air Force for almost 24 years and is a staff officer at the Pentagon, is also the principal owner of Wolf Stake Consulting LLC. Eapen is the founder of the Center for Creative Foresight and a senior fellow with the Conference Board’s Economy, Strategy and Finance Center – Europe.
- The Ackerman Center for Excellence in Sustainability hosted its annual UNC Sustainability Awards honoring Full-Time MBA Program students graduating with a sustainable enterprise concentration and recognizing significant accomplishments in sustainability by alumni, state businesses and nonprofits. Among this year’s winners is Distinguished Alumni honoree Marc Shiman (MBA ’96), whose work over 30-plus years has had a major influence on sustainability practices around the world, including leading trade and investment development projects throughout sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. He is now back in the U.S. serving as technical director of trade for the Cadmus Group after working internationally for 32 years. “When I left my MBA program, I was walking a different path than most of my fellow classmates,” Shiman shared on LinkedIn. “It’s gratifying to see so many of the future leaders of the business community also gravitating towards using the power of their business education to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems.”
- After earning his commercial pilot license in March 2024, Kevin Cowan’s (BSBA ’25) aviation journey continues as FlightGest Academy congratulates him on becoming a certified flight instructor.
- EATS2SEATS COO Maxwell Hurst (BSBA ’21) and founder Mary Laci Motley (BSBA ’21) were the keynote speakers at a ceremony honoring Buncombe County Schools’ top scholars of the year. “As a proud graduate and former student body president of Reynolds High School it was an honor to share my story with all the brilliant soon-to-be graduates in the room,” Hurst shared on LinkedIn.
- Ashley Sperry reflected on her momentous first year in the Full-Time MBA Program, including being named the incoming MBA Student Association executive vice president and exploring business in Thailand and Japan through Global Immersion Experiences. “Transitioning back into an academic environment presented its challenges,” Sperry, a U.S. Army veteran, shared on LinkedIn, “but being intellectually stimulated and surrounded by an exceptional peer group made it incredibly rewarding.”